RECORD HOMELESSNESS AMID ONGOING AFFORDABILITY CRISIS – Harvard JCHS
“Homelessness spiked 12 percent (71,000 people) in 2023, with more than 650,000 people unhoused, the highest number recorded since data collection began in 2007. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s point-in-time estimates show an increase in nearly every state and also for both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. The growing number of unhoused people is driven in part by the expiration of many pandemic-related relief measures and an influx of migrants. However, the most fundamental driver of the nation’s growing homelessness is the ongoing housing affordability crisis that has left a record number of renters cost-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of income on housing and utilities, as detailed in our latest report, America’s Rental Housing 2024.”